Tuesday, February 19, 2002

Autopilot

"In navigating the world and deciding what is rewarding, humans are closer
to zombies than sentient beings much of the time."

Scientific validation for what one has long suspected...

"Dr. Schultz found that when the monkey got more juice than it expected,
dopamine neurons fired vigorously. When the monkey got an amount of juice
that it expected to get, based on previous squirts, dopamine neurons did
nothing. And when the monkey expected to get juice but got none, the
dopamine neurons decreased their firing rate, as if to signal a lack of
reward."

So... one only gets a happiness boost from the unexpected. I guess I
expected that. :/ It goes a ways at explaining why those whom are really
good at predicting are often so melancholy.